


Deep Cover

by mkmonkiis



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015), The West Wing
Genre: AU, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Spies, White House, everyone is useless, mainly an original work with side characters inspired by fandoms, not a drop of canon, superpowers eventually, tw homophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-01-02 05:14:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21156188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mkmonkiis/pseuds/mkmonkiis
Summary: Alex and Kai are two agents for a secret international spy agency with hidden interests. Both are recruited out of high school to the Academy where they meet. They spend a year together as best friends before circumstances pull them apart, leaving both with unresolved and unrealized feelings. Six years later, they are force together for an assignment casting them as newly weds working for the President of the United States as speech writers and advisors. This is their journey as they navigate the complexities of influencing US policy without drawing suspicion and grapple with the implications of the organization they work for, all while dealing with their complicated feelings toward each other.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> this is just the prologue, I should have the first chapter up in a couple of days. The perspective jumps between Kai and Alex at different points

_ The first thing I remember is her eyes _

The buzz of conversation fills that cafeteria at a steady dull roar as I look around for an empty table. While the room is smaller and everyone a bit older, it still has that distinct high school feel to it. The obnoxious fluorescent lighting, the faint stickiness to everything, the sense that everyone else already knows each other. Unfortunately for me, I was late coming out of Chemistry 301 and every table is taken. Forlornly I make my way closer to the room’s center, near the trash cans. There’s a single guy already at the table and if I’m lucky, he won’t try to make friends. Keeping my head down in this place is really the only goal I have and making friends doesn’t exactly fit that bill. He doesn’t look up as I approach and I take that as a good sign

“Mind if I sit here?”

“Oh” He glances up at me surprised. “Yeah, sure go ahead.”

He’s got a kind of nervous look to him, gangly and wide eyes behind his glasses. If I saw him anywhere else I’d assume he was the type of person to get beat up in high school, rather than that type recruited for an international spy agency. Regardless, I had better things to do than try to profile a random classmate. 

Instead, I pull out my chemistry textbook. Based on class today, I needed to put in a lot of work if I wanted to do well. Advancement was judged on professor based assessments and Professor Nayfer seemed particularly hard to impress. In a room full of overachievers, the only student who seemed to make an impression on him was a girl toward the front of class who solved the warm up question, supposedly three rotations above our heads. 

“Hey Winn, how’s it going?” came a voice from behind me.

I look up just as the same girl from chemistry sits down across from me and next to Winn.

“Not bad so far, how’d chemistry go?”

“Good, good. Hey, I’m Kai” she smiles at me, reaching across the table for a handshake. I’m struck momentarily by how beautiful she is. Her hair falls just above her shoulder in short back waves; she has a soft smile and striking pale green eyes contrasting against the dark tan color of her skin. Her eyes seem to hold mine and for a moment I don’t think I can manage to look away.

“Alex” I return the handshake, absently noting the firm roughness of her palm. 

“Nice to me-” Kai gets cut off by the clatter of of Winn’s food tray getting knocked to the floor.

“Watch where you’re going fag” comes the sneer voice of Collin, as he walks around our table to throw out his own tray. We had first and second rotation together and I’d already pegged this guy as an asshole. And now homophobe got to be added to the list. I glance at Winn to see his ears bright red and his head down. It stokes the fire in my stomach that’s been present since I woke up this morning. And suddenly I find myself acting quicker than I normally would.

Collin turns back from the trash cans and I stand to block his way, anger spreading to the tips of my fingers. I cross my arms. 

“Apologize” My voice is firm but Collin stands a good foot above me at over six feet. It’s clear as he sneers at me that he doesn’t see me as a threat. His mistake.

“Cute,” he glances me up and down. “But I don’t waste my time on people like him”

“And normally I don’t waste my breath on assholes like you. But here we are”

“Listen Babe,” He starts in the most condescending voice, his hand falling to rest on my shoulder. I don’t even pause to think before I take it off, twisting his hands until his wrist dislocates with a loud pop. “ i - FUCK! What the hell?!?”

He falls to his knees as he tries to pull his hand from my hold

“_ Don’t _ touch people without permission. And _ stop _spewing your hateful rhetoric. All it proves it what a colossal waste of space you are.”

I let go of his hand and he pulls it back quickly, cursing under his breath by this point. 

“You might want to ice that, looks like it could bruise” comes a voice to me right and I turn to see Kai standing, her angry piercing eyes centered on Collin. Collin’s friend is ushering him away, and I find myself staring at Kai a few seconds more, unable to look away and unsure why. But the moment passes and I sit back down.

“Thank you” comes Winn’s soft voice from across the table. The redness has faded from his face mostly, leaving him a faint pink, as he makes hesitant eye contact with me. I shrug, hoping to move on.

“Don’t mention it” I say with a small smile, not risking a glance at Kai as I open up my textbook again. Guess that’s strike one for keeping my head down.

_ The first thing I remember is her voice _

“Apologize” Alex’s voice is a little deeper and much colder than it had been before. She stands, arms crossed, staring down an asshole who towers over her. I feel frozen in place, a burning fist of flame sitting in the pit of my stomach. Because I know what I need to do, what I should do. But the scared voice in my head whispers “what if they know” and it’s enough to give me pause.

But then Alex has the guy on his knees, clutching his dislocated wrist. I hear more her voice than her words, rough and angry and cold and calm. It’s enough to ease the burning in my stomach, enough to allow me to speak, enough to feel safe to speak.

And as soon as it started, it’s over. The guy’s friends pull the asshole away and Alex buries her nose in a book. Winn thanks her and that’s it. It’s not a big a deal. _ It’s not a big deal. _ Because she stood up and did what I couldn’t bring myself to do, created the space to do what I had to. All with a hand and her rough calm voice. 

_ It happened in the little moments _

After the first day, four of us formed a bit of a group. We’d study in groups. Winn took up the lead for our design lab. Julien joined our group a couple weeks in, after partnering with Alex in our Documents class. Alex took the lead in our tech rotation and while I helped with our materials rotation. With the intense environment the Academy fostered, our friendships were forged in fire. Outside of sleeping, we basically did everything together, studying, training, eating. The competition was fierce and it helped a lot when we were able to find little moments between everything to relax and just be the teenagers that we still were. Alex and I tended to be the best at finding those moments. 

The soft way she laughed at my jokes, the way she’d bump my shoulder in class, or huffed in quiet frustration when something didn’t make sense. All these things loosened the tightness that seemed ever present in my chest. It was stupid, I knew, to keep feeling the way I did. But the voices of my parents in my head, telling me I was confused, misguided. I was hundreds of miles away and it shouldn’t matter, the things that they told me. It was in these quiet moments, with Alex and my other friends, that I was able to finally forget them.

_ It happened in the quiet hours _

In the beginning, the silence of nights at the academy used to weigh on me. It would pull me under the surface of my memories, submerging me in the nightmares of that night. The sounds of sirens, flashing lights, and the rush of the hospital filled my senses. The panic in my chest just as intense as the night everything happened. The once hulking form of my father, turned weak and immoble as they wheeled him into surgery. The once joyful face of my brother, too quickly ashened, eyes left wide as nurses rolled in a belated crash cart.

At night, while my bunkmate slept and the whole school laid quite, the rough sheets of my bed would drift away. The cool, slightly salty sea air from our window would shift to the hot, bleach tainted air of that hospital. Each night I would relive my nightmare; chest tight, throat burning, ears ringing. I’d lay frozen in bed, drowning in grief and tears until exhaustion overtook me.

Kai was the one who saved me. In our group, I was always the last to quit studying and call it a night. I played it off as studiousness and let Julian and Winn head off when they wanted. But most nights, Kai would stay with me until I was ready or until neither of us could stay awake any longer. One night in particular, maybe there was something that showed on my face or maybe she was just tired of waiting for me. But either way, she took my hand, with a soft “come on” and led me up to the Academy’s roof.

We laid there as she told me stories about the stars, so ridiculous that they had to be fake. And even when my laughter turned into embarrassing tears rolling down my cheeks in hot streaks, all she did was hold me. She asked no questions, just wrapped her arms around me and stroked my back. Kai let me fall apart and told me that even if things weren’t okay, I would be. And with her kind green eyes and her big heart, she saved me in all those quiet hours.

  


_ I figured things out too late _

Alex decided to go to the gala with Julian. I’m not sure when it happened. But we were discussing as a group the hilarity of calling a dance in the cafeteria “a gala”. I had just mentioned that putting the gala the night before our final exams sort of defeated the purpose of giving us a chance to relax when Julian points to her.

“Don’t even think about it. You are my date and you are not allowed to skip to study Miss ‘no sleep means more study time’ ” she laughs at his narrowed eyes and accusing finger, bumping him on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry, I won’t abandon you”

“Good I wouldn’t survive these delinquents without you.” He lays his head dramatically on her shoulder until she pushes it off, laughing. As I watch the two of them interact, my stomach sours a bit, jealousy rearing its head. 

The next week and a half is filled with more of the same. The jealousy won’t go away and I spend much of my time trying to deny the obvious. This can’t happen again, I refuse to let it. I learned better than to fall for my straight best friend, I learned that in high school. So why was I having such a hard time of it now? 

Alex seemed completely ignorant of my internal struggles. We studied like crazy and there were a few nights we fell asleep on the roof looking at the stars instead of making it to our beds. I felt like I was racing a clock in a way, spending as much time with Alex as I could before this stupid dance. But also trying to keep enough distance so she wouldn’t know. Because each moment I spent with her made things more obvious. Every time she laughed or reached for my hand, every time I had to drag her from her room to get us to class on time, I could feel this growing ball of affection strain against my chest. And every time she finally got a chemistry problem that I tried to explain, she’d leaned back in her chair , head turned toward me as she said in that soft low voice of hers, “you’re amazing”. In those moments, despite everything, I could have sworn I was flying. And in those pockets of time, I would wonder if it was such a bad thing to have an enormous embarrassing crush on my best friend. Me the night of the gala, would have said yes. 

We’d all been issued tuxes or dresses for the night since most of us never thought to bring that stuff to a spy academy. There were a few variations of dresses, all terrible. But when Alex stepped out of her room, it took me a good five seconds to scrap my jaw off the ground. It was just a simple dress with spaghetti straps that cinched at the waist and fell to about knee height. But I’d never seen her outside of our uniforms or training sweats. Training had filled everyone out a bit but Alex’s arms, wow. Her hair was tied back in an intricate braid and her eyes outlines in a little kohl that complimented her dark brown eyes. I’d like to say it was just the surprise of it that took my breath away.

The night started off well, we all danced as a group and got a bit buzzed on the spiked punch. The place was loud and crowded but everyone was taking full advantage of the night off. So when that one journey song came on and Alex grabbed me to slow dance, I didn’t think anything of it. Until we were part way through the song, singing to each other like in a cheesy rom-com and I couldn’t bring myself to look away. That warm feeling in my chest grew so much I thought my ribs might crack and all I could wish was that this moment would last forever. That we could stay in this little bubble and Alex kept looking at me the way she was now, the way that gave me hope.

But suddenly the song was over and Julian was interrupting, pulling Alex into the next slow dance. As she walked away with him, I felt the feeling in my chest decay. I couldn’t watch it any longer. So instead, I pushed my way through the crowd, finding the exit that led to the roof. The room was suddenly too hot and the air too sticky. I found myself running up the stairs until I burst through the door, taking a deep breath of sea air and clearing my lungs of everything this night represented. The roof was quiet, the music of the cafeteria not loud enough to reach up here. Loosening my bow tie and kicking off my shoes, I tried to keep my breathing steady. The corner of the roof closest to the sea was empty as always and I made my way there slowly, ignoring the burn of tears behind my eyes. Why did it always happen like this? Was this what I was destined for, forever pining after my straight best friend?

Dropping my bow tie on the floor, I took my perch on the corner of the roof. My brain felt a little foggy from the punch and I hoped that all these emotions would go away once I was sober. Just for tonight, I told myself, I’d sit here and wallow in everything. And then tomorrow I’d get the fuck over her and everything would be okay again. No big deal. Easy enough. I could totally do it, even if I couldn’t bring myself to look up at the stars that reminded me too much of her. Instead I looked out at the darkness where I knew the sea to be. I let the cool breeze and the quiet crashing of waves ground me as I let myself cry. Only for tonight.

“Kai?”

_ Not even a punch to the face would have helped my figure it out _

I scan the rooftop, until my eyes land in the far corner that had become our favored spot. The silhouette I hope is Kai, sits perched on the roof’s edge and I feel my stomach flutter with nerves and concern.

“Kai?” I call out quietly, walking over to her. I watch as her back straightens, hands coming up to her face one at a time. Was she crying? What was going on? I’d spent the past ten minutes hyping Julian up to ask Winn for a dance before I looked around and found Kai had disappeared. I couldn’t help but worry I’d done something wrong. A voice whispered in the back of my head that I messed up our dance. It had felt special (?). My buzzed brain wasn’t doing a great job with adjectives at the moment. All I knew was that the whole time I’d felt like my chest was bursting with something amazing while the same voice in my head had told me to look away, that I wasn’t supposed to feel whatever I was feeling.

She hasn’t answered me yet, but getting closer, I can tell it’s her. Nervously, I sit down next to her, the moon casting just enough light to cause the tears on her cheek to shine. My stomach in knots, I force myself to speak, hoping I manage comfort her as well as she always does me. 

“What happened?” I ask, leaning my shoulder against hers.

“It’s nothing” she shrugs, not turning to look at me. 

“It’s not nothing if it made you cry” I say, trying not to push too much. “If you want to tell me about it, maybe we can fix it together?” 

“I just” she starts to say, as she turns toward me, shoulders raised and tense. But she cuts herself off, biting her lip instead, a movement that draws my eyes. I think the feeling in my chest is want, but why or for what seems like too hard a question to parse out. So instead, I rest my hand on her cheek, wiping away the tears that had fallen. The contact makes my hand tingle and my cheeks warm. 

“Alex...” her voice is soft, a little breathy as she releases her lip from between her teeth.

“Yeah?” I look back up at her. Was that intake of breath me? It’s hard to tell. Kai eyes have always seemed to trap me since the day I met her. And now it feels like she’s silently trying to tell me something, it’s almost a pleading look. And for a moment I wonder if she’s feeling the same way I am, if the pressure in my chest is in hers too. Because all of a sudden it’s intensified, pulling me forward, seeking a sort of resolution. 

And I don’t know which of us moves first. But suddenly the space between us disappears as our lips meet and that resolution flows like a cascade through my body. Kai’s lips are soft against mine, pushing ever so slightly, a gasp escapes me as she deepens the kiss. It feels like all my nerve endings are alive and tingling. And the only thing I can think is “wow”. 

It feels like forever and only a few seconds later when she starts to pull away. 

“Alex” She starts but all I can think is that I can’t stand for this to end.

“Don’t stop” the words come out as I think them, in a soft plea as my hand tightens on her jacket. I don’t have time to wonder if this is a bad decision, what this means, or why I need this so bad. Because Kai is kissing me again, her soft lips and firm hands making it impossible to string together any more thoughts.


	2. Six Years Later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> time skip to 6 years later, both Alex and Kai are full blown agents given a huge new assignment and they're in for a bit of a surprise. Fandom characters will be popping up probably around chapter 3 or 4.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 6 months later than anticipated... oops. Still deciding how I want to handle perspective shifts, for now A: will be alex and K: will be Kai

A:  
I stare out the window next to me, trying to focus on the array of green. We’re flying over wide expanses of woods with splatters of buildings and highways breaking through the tree line. Watching as parts of the landscape changed, while others stayed the same, helped calm the anxiety in the pit of my stomach. The thick folder of paper laid heavy in my lap, seeming almost to weigh down the whole plane.  
“Attention passengers, we are beginning our descent towards Dulles International Airport. Please buckle your seat belts and remain seated. We should be arriving in about 25 minutes” The captain’s voice comes, a bit garbled, over the loudspeaker, taking away my ability to ignore my new assignment any longer.  
I had finally been assigned the mission I’d hoped would never come. Everyone knew that it was standard procedure for the Agency to assign assets to paired missions two to three years into field work. But I’d shown my vast capabilities when working alone, often doing the job of three to four agents. After four years without an assignment like this, I’d hoped I would be an exception to the rule.  
Rather, the folder in my lap carried my first paired assignment, expected to last a near permanent duration of seven years. My apprehension felt palpable as I tried to swallow through the tightness in my throat. They’d stuck me with one of the worst missions I could have imagined for myself. Not only would this pairing last for longer than I’d been an agent, the success of it was founded on my ability to convincingly portray one half of a newly wed couple. The most experience I had with men was one night stands, and I had even less experience with women. How on earth was I supposed to know what a relationship entailed, let alone play a love sick moron?  
The stress of it all burned like a hole in my stomach. The only thing preventing me from demanding a new mission, was the actual meat of it. Policy Advisor and Senior Speech Writer for the President; this was the deep cover, exactly the kind of wholly intense and impactful operation I’d been hoping for. These were the operations that made careers. I had no idea how the Agency managed to install us this high up. So what if I had to pretend I had a wife I was deeply in love with. I had some practice, a minimally helpful voice in the back of my head reminded me, dredging up long packed away memories of a kiss on a roof, surrounded by stars and salty sea air.  
I push back at the reminder, a memory now tinged with sadness and reeking of loose ends. That was an aberration. Nothing about that situation would help me now. But I would figure it out, I resolved. The operation was too good of an opportunity to miss. I just hoped my partner would be someone tolerable. 

K:  
I stand waiting with the other valet, holding a makeshift name card, stolen from an out-of-order sign outside the women’s restroom. So maybe I hadn’t done the best job of planning ahead. To be fair, the nature of this new assignment was throwing me for a loop. This would be the kind of espionage that could seriously get me executed for treason, even if it did sound incredibly interesting. But on top of that, I was going to be partnered with a stranger for seven years and pretend to be in love with them. The only thing I was thankful for was that the partner was a woman. There wasn’t a chance in hell I was going back in the closet, no matter the assignment.  
Still, the nerves made my hands jittery as I watched the conveyor belts of the baggage carousel begin to move. Faking a relationship was about as awkward as it got. The only thing that could make it more awkward was if the agent I would be working with was straight. Hopefully the Agency would have the foresight not to put me in that position.  
A crowd of people starts filing out of the doors leading to the arriving terminals and I force myself to focus. The sign, scrawled in my hasty handwriting, would hopefully be enough for my partner to recognize their new name. But just in case, I scan the crowd, looking for signs. Ruling out men, children, the elderly, gets me down to about a third. An agent was usually identifiable for me if I looked hard enough. In casual situations like these, all agents tended to move with a bit more purpose and care. It was always the eyes that gave us away, hyper watchful, because we had to be.  
And as my gaze sifts through the mass of people, I focus on warm brown eyes, flecked with gold and their familiarity makes my blood run cold. A moment after our eyes connect, I watch her freeze. It feels like only a moment has passed but also an eternity, since the last time we saw each other six years ago. Her hair is shorter, her eyes a bit more tired with circles I can see from here. Instead of our uniforms, she’s dressed in a leather jacket thrown over a dark shirt and jeans, combat boots finishing off a distinct style she’d never had the chance to display at the Academy. Her face was the same though, the differences barely distinguishable from the face of the 19-year-old version of her in my head. With each tiny assessment, the shock of this fades. She seems to collect herself as well. And as she begins to walk towards me, I realize I was wrong. There was definitely a more awkward situation I had failed to consider. Fuck. 

A:   
It takes me a few moments to decide that she’s not a hallucination. I was running on a couple hours’ sleep and, try as I might, Kai had already been on my mind. She looks older now, more mature. Her hair is tied back in her typical braid, light green eyes pinning me in place like they always used to, sucking up a bit too much oxygen from the room. She returns my stare, looking almost as shocked as I do. A voice in the back of my head whispers that this shouldn’t feel so much like seeing a ghost.  
I’m gifted the chance to recover as a little kid being dragged by her mom, bumps into me. The mom’s apology is enough to draw my gaze away. I give her a smile and a nod and take advantage of the newly freed oxygen. It’s just enough to help me ignore the butterflies in my stomach, enough to force myself forward.  
Still each step seems to come too quickly, my brain not rebooting fast enough to remember how to form words. Instead it keeps getting stuck on memories. The first day we met, joking with our friends, the sound of her voice as she tells stories from the stars, the feeling of her lips soft against mine, the concern in her eyes as I turn away into my exam room.   
Don’t hate me, don;t hate me, don;t hate me  
are the only words banging around my head. And the words , or rather word, that comes out of my mouth isn’t much better.  
“Hi...”  
A millisecond after I speak seems to last for eternity. But then Kai is smiling and pulling me into a hug. The hug is brief, her arms wrapped loosely around me for only a moment. But still, her warmth surrounds me and I feel a tight twisting in my chest that’s definitely disproportionate to the intensity of the hug. But I’m not thinking about that.  
She still smells the same.  
I cringe at my own internal monologue. And as Kai pulls away, I pull myself together by sheer force of will.  
“Wow, this is unexpected.”  
“You’re telling me” I find myself smiling despite the nerves.  
Maybe she doesn’t hate me.  
There’s an awkward moment of silence where neither of us knows what to say. Then Kai clears her throat.  
“Guess I didn’t need this” she holds up the paper in her hand, scrawled in her distinctive penmanship. It’s only now that I notice there’s writing on the back, ‘out of order’ in bold black font.   
“You’re as good at preparing as ever, I see” I find myself teasing her.   
“Hey” she mocks offence, eyes sparkling. “I had a sharpie didn’t I?”  
“You’re right, you should definitely get points for the sharpie” I admit, rolling my eyes.   
This feels kind of normal... is that good or bad?  
“Okay you broke me...I lied. I borrowed a sharpie to make the sign” she holds her hands up in defeat like I’d pressed her, making me laugh despite the nerves. “Come on, the car’s this way” She breaks eye contact leading me away and all I can think is that those eyes haven’t dulled with time.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think in the comments!


End file.
